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THE CENTENNIAL 



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HOBART COLLEGE 

1822 - 1922 



THE CENTENNIAL 

OF 

HOBART COLLEGE 

1822-1922 



EXERCISES IN CONNECTION WITH THE CELEBRATION 
OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1922 



GENEVA, NEW YORK 
1922 






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INVOCATION 

BY THE REV. CALEB ROCHFORD STETSON, D.D., RECTOR OF 
TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK 

Almighty God, and Heavenly Father, our rock and our 
defence, our Saviour and our might, in whom we trust, 
who hast been our refuge from one generation to another: 
we give Thee humble and hearty thanks for all the bless- 
ings, temporal and spiritual, bestowed upon this Insti- 
tution of sound learning, for lo, these many years; and 
especially for its continued prosperity, and preservation, 
through years of ever growing service to Thy Church, to 
this memorial day. 

We thank Thee for the light of the Everlasting Gospel, 
which hath shined and still doth shine in this place; for 
those faithful Bishops, Priests and Doctors, to whose far 
sighted wisdom and Godly counsel, under the guidance of 
Thy Holy Spirit, this College owes its foundation. Help 
us to hold them ever in grateful remembrance, and grant 
them a place before Thy throne, where they may continue 
to serve Thee in the Heavenly Places. 

We thank Thee that Thou didst raise up devout and 
faithful laymen, to devote themselves and their means to 
the temporalities of this Institution, and we pray that 
Thou wilt grant them that reward which Thou hast 
promised to those who have been faithful stewards. 

And we beseech Thee to guide and prosper those upon 
whom is now laid the responsibility for the welfare of this 
College, and grant that all things may be so ordered and 
settled by their endeavours, upon the best and surest 
foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice. 



4 HoBAKT College 

religion and sound learning may be established here for all 
generations. 

Bless our undertaking to commemorate on this Cen- 
tennial Day the founding of Hobart College, one hundred 
years ago; and as we recall the past with joy and pride, 
help us to look to the future with courage and confi- 
dence, for we know that without Thee our labour is 
but lost, and that with Thee we shall go forth as the 
mighty; and we beseech Thee to grant that when we shall 
have served Thee in our generation, we may be gathered 
unto our fathers, having the testimony of a good conscience, 
in the confidence of a certain faith, in favour with Thee 
our God and in perfect charity with the world; all which 
we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with 
Thee and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory, world 
without end. Amen. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME 

BY BEVERLY CHEW, L.H.D., HONORARY CHAIRMAN OF THE 
HOBART CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION COMMITTEE 

This is a proud day for Hobart College. We are as- 
sembled here to celebrate the one hundredth year of our 
beloved institution. We have invited to rejoice with us 
our friends, our neighbors, representatives of sister uni- 
versities and colleges, and members of learned societies. 
In the name of the Trustees, the President and Faculty of 
Hobart College, I bid you a hearty welcome. Your 
presence here testifies to us your sympathy for what our 
college stands for, and your approval of what has been 
accomplished in the past one hundred years. 

I welcome the presence of the Bishop of the Diocese, 
Chancellor of the College, who has proved himself our 
fervent friend, and we thank him for his earnest zeal in 
behalf of Hobart. 

I welcome the Reverend Clergy, many of them gradu- 
ates of Hobart, who have ever proved faithful, and who to- 
day rejoice with us in the brighter future that is before us. 

I welcome the Alumni and former students who in the 
magnificent efforts to attain the "Million for Hobart" 
have manifested their love for the college in an unmis- 
takable manner. 

Finally, I welcome the citizens of Geneva who have 
shown the deepest interest in the welfare of Hobart and 
have generously contributed to the Centennial Fund. 
It is a matter of the greatest satisfaction that the re- 
lations between the city and the college have always 
been cordial and friendly, and never more so than at the 
present time. Hobart has never been a large college, nor 
has it ever been a richly endowed institution. Neverthe- 
less, it has always believed in and taught sound learning 



6 lIoBART College 

and genuine culture and has ever striven to send forth 
from its halls men well equipped to take their places in 
the world among cultivated and high-minded citizens, 
devoted to all that constitutes a patriotic American. 
Loyal to the country, her sons went forth in defense of the 
flag at the time of the Civil War and not a few in the 
recent World War offered the supreme sacrifice of their 
hves. The memorial to these young heroes will be dedi- 
cated today. 

We graduates owe more to her for whatever success we 
have made in hfe, than we are perhaps aware of. In 
my own case, I freely acknowledge my indebtedness and 
here humbly express my grateful thanks. The love of 
literature has been fostered in Hobart, both the ancient 
classics, the "Humanities" of our forefathers, and the 
literature of modern times. The demand of science was 
early recognized and Hobart was among the first to confer 
the B. S. Degree. 

As one of the older Alumni, I feel I must reverently 
mention the names of those learned men who gave their 
Hves to building up the reputation of Hobart and in 
maintaining the standard of scholarship of which we are 
so justly proud: Dr. Benjamin Hale, Dr. Abner Jackson, 
Presidents; Dr. Horace Webster, Dr. William D. Wilson, 
Dr. Kendrick Metcalf, Dr. John Towler, Dr. Francis P. 
Nash, Dr. Hamilton L. Smith and Dr. Charles D. Vail. 
The mere mention of these names of our former instructors 
cannot fail to awaken in us the feelings of sincere affection. 
Fortunately, one of that elder line is with us today and I 
salute with reverent respect Dr. Joseph H. McDaniels. 

With larger resources and increased equipment and 
enlarged faculty, can we not confidently look forward to 
more glorious results in the coming years? The working 
out of many problems we can safely entrust to our Trustees 
and our beloved President, Dr. Murray Bartlett. 



THE CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 

BY PROFESSOR MILTON HAIGHT TURK, PH.D., OF HOBART 
COLLEGE 

Mr. President: 

It is not, I think, without a certain hesitancy that we 
look back today upon our origin and source. In the pres- 
ence of the honored representatives of great and famous 
institutions we are reminded of our slender roll and modest 
achievement, and confession rather than rejoicing springs 
to our lips. Yet we may reflect that these are our friends 
about us, that they are not gathered here to measure 
fames or match deservings. And while as sober-minded, 
honest men we remember our short-comings, we believe 
that we have striven towards the same high end, have 
subscribed the same covenant, with our more distinguished 
brethren. When the shrine of education is the goal of the 
pilgrimage, knight and yeoman may travel side by side. 

I rejoice. Sir, that I may confine my remarks to the 
beginnings of our College and am dispensed from tracing 
its history. I am sure that this act of benignancy on 
your part will greatly commend you to my audience, as 
it has endeared you to me. Of the founding of the College 
I will speak, then, and of its founder, whose name the 
College bears. 

If we could go back a little more than a century, and 
stand by the lakeside on a lovely September morning, we 
might see a little knot of gentlemen surrounding a sturdy 
clerical figure. There is some talk among them, and at 
last the Bishop strikes his cane upon the ground. "Here, 
gentlemen," he says, "is the spot for the College." 

The man who thus settled not the least important 
question for our College had been raising and settling 



8 HoBAET College 

great questions all his life. John Henry Hobart was at 
this time about forty-five years old; he had already served 
for a decade as Rector of Trinity Church, New York, and 
Bishop of the whole State. He was accustomed to travel 
by coach one or two thousand miles in his episcopal 
visitations, not only covering this State, but heeding 
Macedonian cries from Connecticut and New Jersey, and 
on one occasion, Michigan. He preached countless 
sermons; he wrote many books; he indefatigably created 
and headed organizations, religious and educational. 
He was a general officer in the army of the Lord, and he 
was a fighting general. 

Hobart was of Pilgrim ancestry, being the great-great- 
grandson of Edmund Hobart of Hingham, Massachusetts. 
The original Hobarts are honorably distinguished by 
Cotton Mather, because of a zeal rendered "more con- 
spicuous by the impiety of that neighborhood." Our 
bishop's father, Enoch by name, was a sea-captain, a 
respected citizen of Philadelphia and a regular attendant 
of Christ Church. Dying in middle life, he left an infant 
son to the care of a most competent mother. This son, 
born September 14, 1775, was christened John Henry by 
the Reverend William White, who afterwards as Bishop 
of Pennsylvania confirmed him, assisted in his conse- 
cration and lived to mourn his loss. 

Hobart's first school was the newly established Episco- 
pal Academy, where at nine years he began to excel. 
The earnest fluency of speech which later distinguished 
him, marked him even then. If a row was on, he was apt 
before plunging into the fray, to plead his cause with 
many ardent words. The combat stayed; sometimes his 
eloquence prevailed. If not, though small he was well 
made, and he was never known to turn his back upon a 
foe. 



The Centennial 9 

Hobart was not singular in his love of eloquence. A 
stripling nationality in those days gave frequent voice to 
its hopes and desires: a certain sensitiveness to expected 
criticism, perchance, found vent in much self-defense and 
not a little self-assertion; we blushed in words. And 
our John Henry, it must be remembered, had breathed 
from infancy capitoline air, which is known quite automat- 
ically to take on articulate forms. At all events our hero 
in his tenth year organized in the Episcopal Academy 
"A Society for the Advancement of its Members in Useful 
Literature. ' ' The means of advancement in this case were 
essay and debate, all proceedings being conducted with 
high decorum. "Mr. W. presents his compliments to 
Mr. H.," begins one communication addressed to the 
founder and president. 

In Hobart 's thirteenth year, in 1788, he entered the 
University of Pennsylvania. At once appeared there the 
Philomathean Society, whose business again was oratory 
and debate, and whose strenuous rules, framed by the 
founder, provided fines for every sort of dereliction from 
duty. Perhaps this organization proved too expensive; 
at all events the Ciceronian Society soon took its place. 
Its regulations also are preserved in the future Bishop's 
hand; so likewise are the articles of impeachment of the 
Ciceronian president, one Bolton, signed by J. H. Hobart, 
wherein the said ofiicer is styled a usurper, his offence 
having consisted evidently in fining and otherwise oppres- 
sively using one J. H. Hobart. The president, we learn, 
has "tyrannically obstructed the freedom of debate," 
interrupting the members frequently and calling them to 
order without cause. The President's defense, though a 
masterpiece, availed him nothing. He was convicted on 
three counts and solemnly reprimanded, whereupon he 
resigned his office, to which very soon succeeded the said 
J. H. Hobart. 



10 HoBART College 

In the autumn of 1791, at the age of sixteen, Hobart 
entered Princeton as a Junior. He had not here to found 
his debating society. The two great Princeton bodies, 
Whig and Cho, were already flourishing, and Hobart at 
once became an ardent member of the Whigs. An 
earnest and efficient student in every branch, as well as a 
brilliant speaker, he soon stood forth as the leading repre- 
sentative of the Whigs in the struggle for college honors. 
Clio had, however, also an able contender, and when the 
end came, the Faculty divided equally as to the award of 
the highest Commencement honor. After much debate it 
was agreed to toss a coin. "Heads for Hobart, tails for 
Taylor," were the euphonious calls, and the Latin Salu- 
tatory was duly awarded to John Henry Hobart. But — 
and let this be a warning to all wayward faculties — on 
account of the epidemic of yellow fever at Philadelphia, 
Princeton was unable to hold a Commencement in 1793. 
The Senatus Academicus had tossed its coin, and tossed 
away its dignity, in vain. 

Hobart's stay at Princeton was a period of great happi- 
ness. Those who knew him then speak of his unusual 
gayety of temper, his untiring zeal, his social habits, his 
powerful influence in composing differences. Certainly 
his friendships, arising in these years, were of unusual 
number, warmth and duration. His correspondence with 
these friends is extraordinarily ardent and voluminous. 
The untimely death of two of them he mourned intensely; 
with many he maintained close relations throughout his 
busy life. The saddest duty he had ever to perform was 
the deposition from the ministry of one of these life- 
long friends; and perhaps his most touching sermon is the 
letter in which he strove to comfort this friend and re- 
establish his shattered life. 



The Centennial 11 

It is related of his student days that the famous Dr. 
Benjamin Rush, glancing up one evening at the light of 
Hobart's candle, exclaimed, "Ah, that Johnny Hobart 
will one day be a great man." But in his own circle he 
was a great man then. At eighteen he had already proved 
himself as a scholar, an organizer and leader, a lover of 
human beings — even a rescuer of human souls. Those 
who knew him heard and followed him as gladly and com- 
pletely then as ever; only their number and their years 
were to increase. 

Thus Hobart at the age of eighteen became a Bachelor of 
Arts of Princeton. As to his next step he was for a time 
uncertain — the only period of doubt in his career. He 
entered the counting-house of his brother-in-law for a 
while, but business did not attract him. In the spring he 
returned to Princeton to take up, under Bishop White's 
direction, his work of general reading and special prepara- 
tion for the ministry. He was the only theological stu- 
dent who had the Episcopal ministry in view. All the 
rest were Presbyterians. He came to realize then what a 
hardship it was for his own Church that she had made no 
provision for the education of her clergy. That was one 
of the things to be done. 

There were great arguments in these days — one-sided 
in numbers at least. Hobart was as strong a Churchman 
at eighteen as at fifty. But these were his friends, and 
as one student of that time remarked, the "place was 
full of his fame." Perhaps he gained now his notion of 
true liberality. "Christian charity," he said once, "is 
violated not by contending for what each individual deems 
the truth, but by conducting the contest under the in- 
fluence of an improper spirit." Nor were the discussions 
confined to theology. The United States had but re- 
cently adopted her Constitution; Washington was presi- 



12 HoBART College 

dent; and Philadelphia was the capital. Hobart appears 
as a strong defender of ordered liberty. Writing of some 
disturbances in the South in 1794, he says: "They are for 
tarring and feathering everyone who does not approve of 
every violent measure which hot-headed demagogues may 
advocate. Freedom of opinion. . . .is destroyed among 
them. . . .If I am not allowed to think as I please and 
profess my sentiments, as long as I support the constitu- 
tion and laws of my country, it is of little consequence who 
prevents me, whether the Empress of Russia, or one of 
these democratic societies." 

In January 1796 he finally accepted the tutorship at 
Princeton which had been offered to him shortly after his 
graduation; continuing, of course, his theological studies. 
By the testimony of many contemporaries, he succeeded 
admirably in this new calling. "He was," we are told, 
"as an instructor ardent, industrious and faithful; prompt 
in action and expression; sometimes vehement and in 
danger of a little transport, but ready afterward to admit 
it." He evidently had admirers among the undergradu- 
ates. With a high reputation for fluency and vigor as an 
orator, he was in great request when speeches were needed. 
Nor was it considered necessary that he should deliver all 
his speeches himself. "I depend upon you for a speech," 
wrote one friend. Another life-long correspondent re- 
quested assistance on his ordination sermon, to be used in 
his induction into the Presbyterian ministry. But the 
following at once explains and commends the writer and the 
recipient, who kept it as long as he lived. 

"Respected Tutor: — I take the liberty to address you on 
a subject of the greatest importance to me. It is to re- 
quest you to prepare my Commencement oration. I 
am sensible. Sir, that I ask a great favor, but the necessity 
of the occasion urges me to it. Ever since examination I 



The Centennial 13 

have been thinking to write it myself: my health, how- 
ever, being impaired by a sedentary life, I found it neces- 
sary to employ my time in liding, and visiting my friends; 
and thus deferred it, from time to time, until this late 
hour. And now I am so indisposed from a bad cold, that 
I find it impossible to write the oration myself. I there- 
fore make my first request to you. Sir, in whom I have 
always found the strictest sincerity. I wish only a short 
one. A few leisure moments in your hands will amply 
suffice. Choose a subject most agreeable to yourself; 
it will not fail to please me. If finished one week or four 
days before Commencement, I shall think myself ex- 
ceedingly favored. In the course of ten or twelve days I 
hope to be in Princeton. If you can, consistently with 
duty, oblige me at this time, I know it will be done. If 
you do write my oration, I shall consider myself bound to 
you by the strongest ties of gratitude and friendship." 

Hobart left Princeton lq the spring of 1798, and having 
been found well-grounded in theology and in the dis- 
cipline and worship of the Episcopal Church, he was on 
June 3d, 1798, ordained deacon by Bishop White in his 
home church, Christ Church, Philadelphia. He at once 
assumed charge of two small churches near that city; 
in 1799 he took over for a year Christ Church, New 
Brunswick; three months later he was called to the ex- 
cellent country parish of Hempstead, Long Island, and in 
June 1800 he removed thither with his bride, Mary Goodin 
Chandler. 

His reputation still grew. On August 27th he was 
called to St. Mark's in the Bowery, but declined, to 
accept the call, given him twelve days later, to be an 
assistant minister of Trinity Church, New York. Hobart 
was then a little under twenty -five years of age; he had 
been in the ministry two years, and was still in deacon's 
orders. 



14 ' HoBAET College 

Arriving in New York ia December 1800, he settled in a 
modest two-story dwelling on the river side of Greenwich 
Street. Here in his attic study overlooking the river he 
worked as few men can work. He was already a noted 
preacher, it would seem, and especially distinguished by 
the fact that he preached from memory, while his brother 
clergy almost always read from manuscript. He spoke 
with less elegance than some others, but with intense 
feeling and energy. He was most zealous in his parish 
work. He began immediately the long series of re- 
ligious publications — books and periodicals — of which 
the mere titles fill many pages. He likewise became the 
co-founder or originator of almost innumerable church 
organizations. 

Thus it came to pass that when iu 1811 Bishop Moore 
became disabled and asked for an assistant Bishop, Hobart 
was elected by a decisive majority. He was not yet thirty- 
six years of age when he thus assumed the actual though 
not titular control of both Trinity Parish and the Diocese 
of New York. The election had not been unanimous. 
The Bishop's rise had been too rapid, and his character 
and opinions were too marked in every way, to leave him 
without opponents. But he emerged from every con- 
troversy stronger than before. 

Of Bishop Hobart's work for the American Episcopal 
Church let Bishop Coxe, his brilliant successor in Western 
New York, speak. "At the time of Hobart's consecration," 
he writes, "the Church was at a low ebb of vitality, though 
perhaps not at the lowest. The old clergy were dying out, 
few had come forward to take their places; in the country 
at large the Church was little known, and generally 
looked upon as antiquated, efiFete and ready to perish. 
In Virginia Chief Justice Marshall was astonished, in 
1811, to hear of a young man who proposed to enter its 



The Centennial 15 

ministry; he had supposed it dead and buried." "Look 
then, at the epoch which Hobart created. He rescued the 
Church from a fossilized positioa in this country; brought 
it into contact with the actual life and thought of his day, 
and lifted it into the sphere of commanding dignity, where 
under his moulding and directing hand it became a power 
in the nation." 

We cannot speak at length of this great undertaking. 
It was a work of education. The laity had to be taught 
what their Church meant aad what she stood for in the 
world. In colonial days, supported by ancient grants or 
by Enghsh missionary funds, the Church had had no need 
of a working lay-people, and it had had no such people. 
The clergy, likewise, independent of their parishioners, 
were only too apt to be indifferent to their opinions and to 
their needs. The Church wanted a new body and a new 
spirit. Young Hobart had indeed shouldered a giant's 
load. 

He was prepared. His mind was trained by long study 
and constant thought; his heart was schooled by a very 
honest piety; his very soul was aflame with ardor for his 
glorious cause. He had great tenderness; it was said he 
could never pass a little child without a word or a smile. 
He had perfect courage. "Unpopularity," he said once 
to a remonstrant, "God knows I have do need to increase 
the burthen of that, and foreseeing it as I clearly do, I 
would that I could view the matter as you view it; but 
I cannot." And withal he had extraordinary practical 
talent. At the age of twenty-six he was called to a trustee- 
ship in Columbia College, where Robert Troup, Brock- 
hoist Livingston, DeWitt CUnton and Alexander Hamilton 
were fellow trustees; immediately Hobart became one of 
the prominent members of the Board. When Judge 
Livingston was asked to vote for an additional Episcopal 



16 HoBABT College 

representative on the Board, he rephed: "Sir, the Church 
needs no abler representative than the young man she 
has already given us. Mr. Hobart has all the talents of a 
leader, he is the most parliamentary speaker I ever met 
with; he is equally prompt, logical and practical. I 
never yet saw that man thrown oflf his centre." And he 
added on some further urging: "Sir, you underrate that 
young man's talents; nature has fitted him for a leader; 
had he studied law he would have been upon the bench; 
in the army a major-general at the least, and in the state 
nothing under prime-minister." 

Bishop Hobart had been a student and teacher up to 
the time he entered the ministry; he remained a teacher 
as well as a student to the end of his crowded days. At 
Princeton he had known what difficulties beset the can- 
didate. The Church did indeed in 1804 provide for the 
examination of candidates, but not for their instruction. 
That was still left, as in Hobart's student days, to indi- 
vidual effort under more or less remote clerical supervision. 
In a word, the candidate reached ordination, if indeed he 
reached it, in the face of every hindrance that mere 
negligence could place in his way. 

As his first educational move, Hobart organized the 
Protestant Episcopal Theological Society, to fit its young 
members for the ministry. The constitution and rules are 
once more of Hobart's devising, and the process is that, in 
the main, of his old literary societies — ^reading and dis- 
cussion. To this association — ^perhaps the embryo of the 
General Theological Seminary — many prominent clergy- 
men owed their chief preparation for their life work. 
At the same time he sought the instruction of the laity at 
large by taking over the Churchman's Magazine, which 
he edited till 1811. He was undaunted by lack of support. 



The Centennial 17 

The less willing the people were to subscribe to the maga- 
zine, the more, he contended, they evidently needed it. 

When at the age of thirty-five Hobart became bishop, 
his responsibility as well as his opportunity in the matter 
of Church education greatly increased. He had now to 
determine the fitness of candidates, and the duty of en- 
larging the numbers of the clergy became specifically his. 
The matter appeared at once as a prominent feature of his 
diocesan policy. In 1813 his Convention address con- 
tained an urgent plea for "the attainment of a learned as 
well as a pious ministry." "I trust it will not be long," 
he says, "before a theological school is established." 
In the same year, in a private letter to Mrs. Startin, he 
writes, "I have been long firmly convinced a theological 
school at least, if not a college, is essential to the ultimate 
prosperity of our Church." 

This is, I believe, the Bishop's first reference to the 
need of a Church college in the State of New York. 
It is highly characteristic of his methods and achievements 
that the first gun of his campaign was no shot in the 
dark. From the bequest of this same lady came part of 
the original endowment of Hobart College. 

While the great Hobart was at work in New York, 
however, a lesser Hobart was engaged in twisting another 
strand elsewhere. The Reverend Amos G. Baldwin had 
come in 1806 as a missionary to Utica and the surrounding 
towns. There were then but two Episcopal missionaries 
in the State west of that point, Judd in Central New York, 
and Davenport Phelps in Geneva, where in that year he 
founded Trinity Church. Baldwin, like Hobart, saw 
that the Church was starving for lack of education for her 
laity and especially for her clergy. Fairfield, near Utica, 
was one of his mission stations, and it had a well-estab- 
lished academy. As early as 1812 Baldwin tried to per- 



18 HoBART College 

suade the Vestry of Trinity Church, New York — ^the 
source of all missionary blessings in those days — to grant 
funds to turn Fairfield Academy into an Episcopal college, 
or at least to support an Episcopal clergyman as its 
principal. This proposal having failed, a fresh plan 
occurred to him. The Academy Trustees again were 
willing; this time the Trinity Vestry also, and it was 
arranged that Trinity Church should grant $750 a year, 
on condition that an Episcopal clergyman, as Principal 
of Fairfield Academy, should with an assistant provide 
eight candidates for the ministry with both literary and 
theological training. Bishop Hobart supported this 
scheme, and took an active part in the selection of the 
principal. In 1813 the work was taken up by the Rev- 
erend Virgil H. Barber, who relinquished it in January 
1817 to the Reverend Daniel McDonald. 

And now at last we may return to Geneva, where all 
this time our Bishop and his friends have been enjoying 
that beautiful September morning. In 1813, while 
Hobart was writing pointed letters to Mrs. Startin, and 
our indefatigable progenitor in partibus was manipulating 
trustees in Fairfield, Geneva Academy, which had been in 
existence for several years, was acquiring a charter, con- 
tributions to an endowment fund having been made by a 
group of public-spirited citizens, with James Rees, de- 
voted Churchman and leader in all good works, at its 
head. Geneva Academy thereafter throve until 1817, 
when its work was suspended without date. The time, 
if not yet ripe, was certainly ripening, and oiu- Bishop, as 
usual, was prepared. In the next year Hobart, during one 
of his first missionary journeys, opened his mind to Rees 
and other friends in Geneva on the subject of a theological 
school and college in this place. In 1819 apparently no 
progress was made, but in 1820 the Bishop devoted his Con- 



The Centennial 19 

vention address largely to the matter of education for the 
ministry. Referring to the excellent work accomplished 
by Dr. McDonald at Fairfield, he continued significantly: 
"The grant to the Academy at Fairfield may be trans- 
ferred to an institution in any other situation that may 
present greater advantages." 

His purpose was, as he had already stated in Geneva, 
to "build up a stronghold for the Church in the west" 
(this was the west then) : immediately the Protestant 
Episcopal Education Society, created by this Convention, 
located two diocesan theological schools, the main insti- 
tution in New York, and the Interior School, or Branch 
Theological School, at Geneva. To give effect to this 
arrangement, the Bishop secured the transfer of the Trinity 
grant from Fairfield to Geneva Academy, Dr. McDonald 
and his eight theologians following the grant hither; 
while at the same time, the Academy Trustees here, their 
numbers enlarged so as to assure Episcopal control, not 
only contributed the Academy Endowment, but under- 
took the prompt erection of a building for the combined 
academy and theological school, "with an intent," how- 
ever, as the subscription paper states, "to use all prac- 
ticable means to raise the Academy to the highly useful 
station of a college." The choice of the site of the new 
building was left by the Trustees to the Bishop, and thus, 
on that lovely September morning, he struck his cane to 
the ground and located Geneva Academy, afterwards 
Geneva College, and now Geneva Hall. 

In this matter Hobart's guiding hand is clearly seen. 
The subscription paper is dated February 15, 1821, when 
the Bishop was in Geneva, having been induced, as he 
says, "to this journey at this unfavourable season principal- 
ly with a view to consecrate the churches at Rochester and 
Buffalo (St. Luke's and St. Paul's, of course), and to 



20 HoBART College 

make arrangements with respect to the Branch Theolog- 
ical School, which had been fixed at Geneva." The 
Bishop was here again, on his visitation, August 30th to 
September 1st, and in his Convention address of this year 
he spoke at length of the advantage expected from the 
union of the Branch Theological School with the Academy, 
of the handsome stone building then going up, and of "in- 
dulging the reasonable expectation, that the Academy 
will, at some future period, be advanced to the privileges 
of a college." 

"At some future period" — such language does not 
point to a very early effort to secure a College charter. 
The Bishop meant to have a college as well as a seminary 
here; but apparently, his immediate objective having been 
reached, he proposed no fm-ther step. A reason for this 
may possibly be found in the financial stiuation of his own 
parish. Trinity, at that time. "The condition of the 
funds of that corporation," he says in October, 1822, 
"has compelled them to withhold those liberal grants by 
which, in various parts of the state, the congregations and 
the clergy, previously to the period of my Episcopal 
administration, were aided." At all events, the Bishop 
apparently was not yet ready for a further initiative with 
regard to a college at Geneva. 

The care of the whole Church throughout the State was 
his. That was not true, of course, of the Genevans who 
were interested in the project of a Church college in their 
own town. Almost at once, while the new building was 
still far from completion, McDonald, the Academy 
principal, and Clark, the Geneva Rector, wrote to Hobart 
urging that a college charter be secured forthwith. They 
feel that the life of the Branch Theological School is un- 
certain, because it depends solely upon the Bishop's 
support; should the Branch be withdrawn, the Trinity 



The Centennial 21 

grant must cease, the reopened Academy close and the 
whole plan fail. Within a month, January 22, 1822, the 
petition for a college charter was made; on April 10th, 
1822, the application was granted by the Regents, on the 
condition that an assured income of $4,000 a year should be 
secured within three years' time. 

This application had enjoyed Hobart's energetic support. 
"The moment I heard of it," he wrote McDonald five 
days after the action of the Regents, "I took all the 
measures in my power to promote its success, and ad- 
dressed letters to several of the Regents, and in some 
cases, I believe, with effect. . . .You, who know how 
much I have thought, and how much I have planned and 
labored for this object, can readily conceive my gratifica- 
tion at seeing it thus far accomplished, — sooner indeed, 
than I could have expected." He clearly intends to take 
an active part in the further developments of the project. 
"The organization of the college," he continues, "par- 
ticularly with regard to the trustees who are to be ap- 
pointed, and other matters, will require a great deal of 
deliberation, as much will depend on these measures. I 
expect, God willing, to be at the westward this summer, 
and conclude it will be well for me to spend some days in 
Geneva." Of the raising of $4,000 a year he remarks, 
"I am afraid this will be a difficulty with you. Means, 
however, must be devised for surmounting it." 

Illness prevented the Bishop's visit to Geneva in 1822, 
and again in 1823, when he was forced to give up work and 
go abroad for two years. To the last he maintained as 
far as possible his efforts for the new college. In his 
Convention address of October 1822 he described at 
length the great advantages the Church might expect 
from the new institution. Of the scarcity of Church 
colleges he speaks in terms that a communion now wealthy 



22 HoBART College 

and powerful may well ponder: "The fact is an alarming 
one," be proclaims, "and were it not for the very pecuHar 
circumstances of depression and diflficulty under which 
she has labored, would be a disgraceful one to our church." 
The Convention empowered the Bishop and StandingCom- 
mittee to "carry into effect a plan . . . . for the endowment 
of the College." Finally, in his letter to the Convention of 
1823, held after he sailed, he reports that "exertions are 
making for collecting funds for the college," and reiterates 
his "increasing sense" of its importance to the Church. 

The Bishop's insistence and persistence in urging the 
cause of Church education in general and of Geneva in 
particular are highly characteristic. Almost no one in 
New York agreed with him. "I am the more gratified," he 
writes to McDonald after the granting of the conditional 
charter, "I am the more gratified, inasmuch as I have found 
it diflficult to make the clergy and others in this quarter feel 
as I have felt on the subject. And even now M. and W., 
etc., seem to care little about it." This condition in our 
Church has never changed. The Hobarts have always 
been outnumbered by the M's and W's. 

This being the situation in New York, all depended there 
upon the Bishop alone. Unhappily, throughout the 
critical three years in which the endowment had to be 
raised, Hobart was a very sick man or was out of the 
country. The amount expected from corporation soiirces 
in New York was secured, also the Startin bequest and a 
few private subscriptions. The burden of gathering the 
rest of the necessary funds fell upon the shoulders of the 
clergy and laity of Geneva. "Exertions unparalleled in 
this State," to use the language of a committee of the 
Assembly, were the result. Two features mark this effort. 
First the offer — said to be the first of its kind in this 
country — of an English Course, in which the place of 
Greek and Latin should be taken by Science and Modern 



The Centennial 23 

Languages. The avowed object was to bestow upon 
"the education of farmers, mechanics, manufacturers 
and merchants" some of the attention which heretofore had 
been confined to "our divines, our physicians, and lawyers." 
Secondly, the certificate plan, by which subscribers of 
$100 secured the right, transferrable at will, to send one 
student to Geneva College free of charge for tuition, for a 
period of twenty years, to begin at any time. A large 
number of these certificates were issued, and over two 
hundred were in force twenty-five years later. A few are 
probably still alive, though none has been used, I think, 
since 1890. 

It is easy to point out that the issuance of these certifi- 
cates, while it secured the charter, bankrupted the in- 
stitution, and that the necessity of resorting to such means 
stamped the effort to secure a charter as premature. The 
undertaking was certainly bold in the extreme, but it was 
a case of unavoidable hazard. The Branch Theological 
School, with its Trinity grant, was certainly doomed; it 
was discontinued very soon after the General Seminary 
absorbed both diocesan institutions. And most important 
of all considerations — if the Episcopal Church had not set 
up a college in Geneva some other communion would 
certainly have done so, and Hobart's plan for a strong- 
hold of the Church in this place would have failed for all 
time. Doubtless the effort had to be made; at all events 
it was made. For the first time in this state a college was 
founded without the use of a lottery. More than one- 
half the amount was gathered in this district, and most of 
that portion by the issuance of certificates. In conse- 
quence the Trustees of Geneva Academy, with James 
Rees at their head, were able on January 1st, 1825, to ask 
for a permanent college charter. On February 8th it was 
granted, and Geneva Academy became Geneva College. 



24 HoBART College 

Although Hobart was in Europe when this charter 
was granted, its provisions in matters ecclesiastical clearly 
fulfil his intentions. In the first place, the Board of 
Trustees, though clergy as well as laymen of other 
denominations were members of it, contained a decisive 
majority of Churchmen. This was not only a part of the 
Bishop's plan, as announced in 1818; it applied a principle 
that he had enunciated long before as a trustee of Columbia, 
when that board was torn by disagreements between two 
denominations of almost equal strength in its membership. 
The evidence is complete and conclusive that Hobart never 
intended any organic control of the college by the Church. 
Indeed, he spoke with emphasis on the subject of re- 
ligious freedom within the College. The well known 
provision of our charter, which prohibits the exclusion of 
"any person of any religious denomination whatever from 
equal liberty and advantage of education. . . on account of 
his particular tenets in religion," strong as it is, is much 
less sweeping than Hobart 's statement to his Diocesan 
Convention nearly three years before. "Not that," he 
says, referring to Geneva College and the proposed 
Methodist institution at Ithaca, "Not that there is to be 
exacted any religious test for ofiice, or any exclusion from 
the benefit of these institutions of those of other denomi- 
nations, or any restraint imposed on the religious principles 
of the students, or any obstacles to their worshiping where 
they may think proper." "The principal control," as the 
Bishop expressed it, would remain in the hands of a certain 
denomination, whose interests would be protected without 
infringing the rights of others. This was Hobart's doc- 
trine, as he had developed it before this college was thought 
of; in this way of faithfulness to its own and liberality 
toward others, Hobart College was set by its great founder, 
and in this way, without any shadow of turning, it has 
continued ever since. 



The Centennial 25 

Although corporate powers as a college were not secured 
till 1825, the combined academy and theological school, as 
the Academy announcement for 1822 states, had been doing 
college work since the granting of the conditional charter. 
In 1826, therefore, Dr. McDonald, as Acting President, 
was able to hold his first public examination of candidates 
for degrees, and on August 2d, in Trinity Church, after 
many orations which, we are assured by the Geneva 
Gazette, held the "deep attention of a fashionable and 
enlightened audience," though they lasted all day, the 
first class was graduated. 

Bishop Hobart was able to visit the College in this year 
and again two years later. In 1830, on the occasion of a 
third journey to western New York, he died at the Rectory 
of St. Peter's, Auburn. It is fitting, I think, that we should 
join a certain tribute to him with the commemoration of 
om* first hundred years. It is suitable not only because he 
founded this college, because it was once a part of his 
purpose, a thought of his mind, but for this reason — 
more compelling perhaps — that he exemplified very fully 
the education for which this college was meant to stand. 
Doubtless he was a genius. Judge Livingston prophesied 
that in the State, Hobart would be "nothing under prime 
minister." In reading his life, one is struck by his likeness 
to a great man who actually became the head of this nation. 
Before the great Theodore was, this was Roosevelt — keen, 
vivid, fascinating. All who touched him assumed some 
relation toward him; once known, he could never be 
ignored. He was indeed a genius, and because he was a 
genius we know that he was an educated man. Genius 
may have a great capacity for taking pains; it seems to 
have also a supreme capacity for producing and exhibit- 
ing the results of much painstaking to the world. 



26 HoBART College 

Many a man who has gone from this college may have 
been as truly educated as he; only rarely does the fact 
appear; only now and then can the world see that the man 
is not merely instructed; not only trained for this or that; 
but fully educated, completely created, made into what 
God meant him to be. 

If that first class of ours could return now and look about 
them, our little Hobart would loom gigantic in their eyes. 
As for one of the great universities, they might regard it as 
a city — ^they could hardly think of it as a college : so much 
have the means of instruction been extended in our day. 
And yet, if we speak of education, the ancient problem waits. 
Education is so difficult because it is so intimate. It is 
not like the clothes a man wears ; it is not his possession at 
all, but rather his possessor. Young men come to us to 
get an education ; and all the while it is the business of 
education to get them. 

One has taught, perhaps, for a long time and thought a 
little — ^not very much, of course, because in our beloved 
coimtry somebody is always shouting, "Let's have action," 
and so one goes on acting, which is much easier than think- 
ing. But one thinks a little, and then perhaps one reads the 
life of a man like Hobart, and thinks a little more. Lives 
of great men do not remind us we can make our lives 
sublime; they strongly remind me of the exact opposite. 
But lives like his in whose thought was our beginning 
do convince me that there is such a thing as education. He 
had the root of the matter in him, therefore it has a root. 
His mind had a home, therefore there is a cure for the 
intellectual vagrancy which is our besetting sin. 

And our little Hobart — how has she fulfilled her founder's 
purpose; how has she lived up to the high destiny for 
which he designed her.? Well enough for our love, surely; 
not too ill for our pride. She has not had her namesake's 



The Centennial 27 

brilliancy; she has not attained his eminence; but I 
think she has enjoyed no small measure of his great 
courage. She was born, you remember, of stern travail 
— of "exertions unparalleled in this state;" for a gener- 
ation she faced extremity from day to day. If her lot in 
this respect is not singular, it has been more than common 
hard. And with her courage in the struggle for sub- 
sistence she has joined, I dare maintain, a real constancy 
of purpose. She has moved quietly through the years, 
drawing her sons about her, learning to know and remem- 
ber them, striving to fulfil her purpose in teaching them 
their own. There is one glory of the sun, and another of 
the stars. Let us believe that in this her first century 
Hobart has known the glory of a constant and kindly 
star; let us believe that if her great founder could return 
to us, if her long roll of vanished sons could emerge from 
the mists in which their youth is hid — he and they would 
call down blessings upon her head, as we do this day. 



THE CHALLENGE TO THE COLLEGES 

BY PRESIDENT LIVINGSTON FARE AND, LL.D., OF CORNELL 

UNIVERSITY 

Mr. President, Members and Friends of Hohart College: 

While I am not at this moment charged specifically 
with the agreeable duty of bringing oflScial greetings I 
cannot forego the pleasure of expressing, on behalf of your 
younger sister on the neighboring lake, the warmest and 
heartiest congratulations to Hobart on the completion of a 
century of distinguished academic service. 

An occasion such as that which calls us together this 
morning is, of course, of far more than local significance. 
These celebrations of achievement, however, whether in 
the lives of individuals or of institutions, are worthless 
unless they are made opportunities of assessment not only 
of the past and of the present but of the future. For this 
reason I venture to call your attention to certain impor- 
tant considerations which face every American college 
today. 

I hesitate to indulge in the use of such words as "crisis" 
as being liable to cause certain misapprehension. It is 
true, however, that the situation in which the world finds 
itself does in many ways justify the use of a term of such 
extreme significance. A crisis, and notably a crisis in 
world affairs such as that presented by the late war in 1914 
and again for us as Americans in 1917, served a great and 
useful purpose in stripping away extraneous consideration 
from the problem at issue and forcing the fundamental 
principles involved into bold and sharp relief. It was the 
clear recognition of the principles at stake which brought 
that stirring response from all corners of our wideflung 
territory. 

28 



The Centennial 29 

The war has passed in so far as actual hostilities are 
concerned, but unfortunately there has ensued a period 
of world confusion which has again obscured the situation. 
All thinking minds agree that the problem today is far 
more complex than that presented by the war itself. 
Making all allowance for the natural reaction which in- 
evitably follows strenuous efiFort, it is discouraging to 
realize that certain basic principles of democracy with all 
their implications of personal service to the nation and to 
the world, which had been clearly apprehended by our 
people, are again in danger of submergence. Never was 
there a time when clear thinking, unselfish action and 
civic devotion were more needed than at present. It is 
also evident that, in addition to a disheartening reaction 
towards personal and national material advantage, pro- 
found ignorance and loose thinking is wide-spread and well 
nigh universal. The lesson of contemporary Russia is 
obvious to whomever will read. Rehabilitation and 
progress are impossible unless ignorance is dispelled. 

We have been accustomed to think of the principles upon 
which our democracy is based as being simple and easily 
grasped. Self-government is a term which appeals by the 
apparent simplicity of its implications. Those impli- 
cations are, in fact, extraordinarily complex. We have 
but to review the development of our own American nation 
from the little self-governing colonies of New England to 
the complicated civic organization that we see today to 
realize that truth. 

In a word, my theme this morning is simply that un- 
less ignorance be removed, unless a sense of responsibility 
be instilled, unless we have a public ready to give the 
required service, and that intelligently, our democracy 
cannot survive. 



30 HoBART College 

The implication of this condition is obvious. The 
responsibility involved must necessarily rest most heavily 
upon that institution charged primarily with the duty of 
the discovery and spread of knowledge, and that is our 
educational system. For us today it is one aspect of this 
responsibility which engages our attention. 

It is clear that a prime essential to the successful oper- 
ation of democracy is an informed and devoted citizenship. 
The experience of centuries has shown, however, that, no 
matter what the level of intelligence, leadership in a de- 
mocracy is as essential as in any other form of political 
organization. In the long run it is to our colleges and 
universities that we must look for the production of 
leaders of a type equipped not only by inherent quality but 
by training for the discharge of this fundamental function. 

The complexities of our modern life with the special- 
ization of knowledge has made necessary the development 
of professional training of the type which we see in our 
so called universities of today both here and abroad. 
That there are dangers in an over development in tech- 
nical training no thoughtful educator will deny. That 
there remains a place for broad generalized education is a 
statement far short of the actual situation. Such train- 
ing is not only admissible, — it is the insistent demand of 
the times and indispensable in our modern life. There 
is often a tendency to regard technical equipment as 
incompatible with more general educational preparation. 
This is, to my mind, a pernicious error in our contemporary 
educational thought. The fundamental problem is not the 
supremacy of one or the other conceptions of education but 
rather an adaptation of technical demands to the indis- 
pensable generalized equipment without which no man is a 
competent citizen. 



The Centennial 31 

Further, there is grave danger of a loss of clear ap- 
prehension of certain simple ideals of citizenship and life 
in the hurly burly of our modern industrial existence. In 
all this confusion there stands out as one of the most 
encouraging signs the sturdy adherence to fundamental 
ideals of religion, citizenship and education which has been 
exhibited by that splendid group of American institutions 
of which Hobart is a shining example. It is because the 
country and the world need as never before men and 
women inspired by these very ideals and produced by just 
such institutions as this that we, from other places and 
from varying points of view, bring to Hobart this morning 
our tributes of admiration, congratulation and confidence. 
Mr. President, the country needs Hobart College. Uni- 
versities are indispensable but colleges also we must have. 
We cannot do without you and I hope and believe that the 
close of another century will find Hobart College holding 
aloft and undimmed the torch of those sound ideals which 
have been her inspiration during the hundred years just 
ended. 



GREETINGS FROM THE UNIVERSITIES AND 
COLLEGES OF NEW ENGLAND 

BY PRESIDENT KENNETH CHARLES MORTON SILLS, LL.D., 
OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE 

At the Centennial of Bowdoin College in 1894 a wise and 
witty judge, himself a graduate of Yale, remarked that at a 
large imiversity a boy went through more college, but that 
at a small college more college went through him. There 
is very much truth in that statement. The College of 
Liberal Arts, whether it be in the center of a university or 
as at Hobart a unit in itself, is the heart of higher education. 
It sends life and vigor into all the other departments of 
learning. As the years go by, as a people we are more 
willing to recognize that the function of the college is to 
prepare not merely for making a living but for living. 
Consequently liberal teaching is coming into its own. 

In bringing to you. Sir, and to Hobart College the greet- 
ings and congratulations of her sister colleges in the East 
and particularly of those institutions in New England that 
are akin to her in tradition and ideals, I desire to empha- 
size if only for a moment two or three points from your 
own distinguished history. In the first place you have 
always had a scholarly faculty. In the long list it would 
be hard to make many individual comments. Still on 
such an occasion as this it may be well to recall that 
Benjamin Hale, a graduate of Bowdoin in the class of 
1818 and President of Hobart from 1836 to 1858, himself 
a classical scholar of unusual attainments, was the founder 
of technical education in this country, having instituted 
at Gardiner, Maine, the first American trade school. And 

32 



The Centennial 33 

nearly every one who thinks of Hobart in our day re- 
members the vivid culture and scholarship of the late 
Professor Nash, and the wide learning of his comrade 
Professor McDaniels: 

Honor and reverence and the good repute, 
That follows faithful service as its fruit 
Be unto him whom living we salute. 

Much of the strength of Hobart has come from its 
Faculty. She has proved that men, not buildings, brains 
not bricks, make a college. It is a good thing to have 
adequate equipment and generous endowments; but it is 
essential for a college to possess and to have possessed 
scholars and men. 

Then we think of the churchly atmosphere of Hobart. 
We are not a pagan nation nor a Mohammedan nation nor 
a Jewish nation nor a Parsee nation. We are a Christian 
nation and it is also well to remember that American 
higher education is still, thank God, Christian and Ho- 
bart has graduated so many Christian gentlemen. If you 
will pardon the personal note, I clearly recall in the days 
of my 3^outh what a force in Maine was that sturdy and 
lovable son of Hobart, Bishop Henry A. Neely. And 
it was because of the very great contribution which Ho- 
bart had made and is making to the leadership of our 
branch of the church that the Commission on Church 
Colleges over which I have had the honor to preside 
urged upon all the authorities and to the best of their 
ability upon all the people of the Episcopal Church, to 
help support and maintain her. 

Scholarship in a Christian atmosphere bears much lovely 
fruit. Today as always we need in our American life men 
and women who have learned from Plato that life without 
the spirit of inquiry is not worth living; and from Christian 
teachers that such intellectual activity must lead to 



34 HoBART College 

service for mankind. An institution of learning that ful- 
fils both these functions cannot spring up over night. 
A fairly good university, Dr. Farrand, can be made in 
fifty years : but it takes a hundred years to make a college. 
In a century a college may begin to show its worth, to feel 
the force of its traditions, to be sure of the type of grad- 
uate it turns out. A college stands serene amid changes 
of society, overturn of governments, passing of men. 
Like Tithonus in the old Greek myth it has the gift of 
immortality. And if its graduates and friends are loyal 
they may confer upon it also the gift of eternal youth. 
That such a precious and useful immortality may fall to 
the lot of Hobart in this fair ground is, I know, the earnest 
wish of all the colleges and universities of the East. 

Floreat Collegium 
Semper, in aeternum. 



GREETINGS FROM THE UNIVERSITIES AND 
COLLEGES OF NEW YORK STATE 

BY PRESIDENT RUSH RHEES, D.D., OF THE UNIVERSITY 
OF ROCHESTER 

I am sure you can appreciate the peculiarly poignant 
character of my regret at the illness of President Ferry, to 
whom you were to have listened at this time. To my 
great sorrow that my friend is prevented from attendance 
here by his state of health you must add my appreciation 
of your disappointment, which none can measure correctly 
who does not know him and his singularly felicitous qual- 
ities of thought and utterance, coupled with friendliness 
that rises to the level of genius. 

But I cannot conceal the fact that, if this disappoint- 
ment had to be, I welcome the opportunity which it gives 
me to express the hearty godspeed which Hobart's nearest 
neighbor wishes her on this happy day, and to join the 
host of friends who congratulate her president, whom I 
have known and honored now for twenty-two years, the 
first ten of which we passed as neighbors and friends in 
Rochester. 

As the temporary representative of a better spokesman 
I bring to you. President Bartlett, and to the noble in- 
stitution which you so effectively serve, the warm con- 
gratulations and greetings of your sister institutions 
large and small. It is a great thing to have served your 
country by offering to her young men the privileges of 
higher education for a hundred years. It is a greater 
thing to come to the threshold of your second century with 
every promise of more full and rich service in the coming 
time. 

35 



36 HoBART College 

Inasmuch as it has been given to me to be the bearer of 
these congratulations, I am glad that I can speak as a 
representative of the smaller institutions in our sister- 
hood; for my experience has made me acquainted with some 
of the dangers that beset our work, as well as with its 
satisfactions. 

The first of those dangers comes when we scan the 
voluminous bulletins of our noble universities, which set 
forth in alluring variety the opportunities for study iu 
all branches of learning. We of the smaller colleges 
are not seldom tempted to enter the race in hopeless 
competition with such wealth of opportunity. Our 
professors of History, or Economics, or Geology, or what 
not, feel that we cannot afford to deny to students who 
come to us the nearest possible approach to the wide 
range of opportunity which they would find at Cornell or 
at Harvard. And this is fatal folly. For it cannot 
honestly be done. Either we announce offerings that we 
cannot and do not expect to have taken, or we spread our- 
selves out so thin over an impossible range of subjects 
that none of the work can be done with the thoroughness 
that alone serves educational ends. 

The second danger that assails us comes from the desire 
that seems just now to be epidemic, to save our colleges 
from utter uselessness of endeavor by exploiting them in 
the interest of this or that vocation— to make our work 
practical ! We are asked to give courses in business English, 
in applied Psychology, in industrial Chemistry, or ag- 
ricultural Biology. We are urged to make our depart- 
ments of Economics into schools of Business Adminis- 
tration, and sometimes are tempted to turn our institu- 
tions bodily into Teachers' Colleges. Now I would not 
be misunderstood. I believe that there is room and need 
for all these several forms of special vocational training. 



The Centennial 37 

The great increase of numbers in our colleges and uni- 
versities accentuates these needs. Faculties know well, 
and often to their sorrow, that many students who seek 
and gain admission to our classes do not belong in college. 
Yet they want and should have educational opportunity 
above the high school grade. What gives me concern — 
I had almost said what irritates me — is the unconcealed 
solicitude which our tempters evince, lest the college 
should pass into an antiquated uselessness, for the lack 
of an understanding of the nemesis that is facing it ! 

Now both of these dangers call us to a clearer understand- 
ing of the task which we have on our hands as Colleges of 
Liberal Arts. In simple words I would say that that task 
is training youth to think intelligently and logically and 
independently, whatever the problem that engages their 
thoughts — whether professional, or commercial, or po- 
litical, or the vast complex problem of social relations. 
And precisely because the range of such problems is so 
wide there can be no specific training that will fit men to 
deal with them by the use of any technical formulas or 
duly authorized methods. 

And this training for intelligent thinking, as I under- 
stand the matter, is precisely what our colleges of liberal 
arts have demonstrated their ability to give. We need 
find no embarrassment from the assertion often flung at us 
by the advocates of vocational education, that the tradi- 
tional college was vocational in its aim at the beginning, 
because it was conducted to fit men for the older so-called 
learned professions — the ministry, or law, or medicine. 
True, the students of the older day were looking forward to 
one or other of these professions, and they and their 
teachers recognized that this or that study might have 
special value for the practical work that was to come later. 
But Hobart, though founded chiefly in the interest of 



38 HoBART College 

raising up educated clergymen for the church to which she 
owed her estabhshment, did not — unless I mistake great- 
ly — undertake to graduate clergymen from her classes. 
And none of our colleges, from the mediaeval beginnings in 
the Faculty of Arts to the dawning of the day of emanci- 
pation from traditional curricula, has pretended to fit 
youth for the professions to which they aspired. After 
they had won their bachelor degrees these youths had 
before them a period of apprenticeship to some master in 
the chosen profession. From such masters they learned 
their practical technique and the special knowledge essen- 
tial to the intelligent use of such technique. The college 
then as now sought to train its students to think, and now 
as then that function is needed and requires no apologia. 

If we keep this objective in mind we may escape the 
double danger that confronts the college. To train 
youth to think intelligently it is not necessary to emulate 
the varied offerings of interesting knowledge that our 
great universities of necessity set before their varied clien- 
tele. If we will insist that each student keep at work on 
one or two fields of knowledge for not less than three years, 
at the same time that he is introduced to other forms of 
knowledge in quite different fields, and will insist that his 
work in his major studies shall be really progressive, there 
is no necessity for great variety of offerings in history, or 
economics, or chemistry, or biology, or any other subject. 
The sole necessity is teachers that know their subjects 
thoroughly and are able to teach them, and time to keep 
each student at one thing long enough to insure his getting 
below the surface in his knowledge of it. If we examine 
the old discredited classical curriculum, we shall find that 
it had this one thing needful. And it did without 
question train men who knew how to think logically and 
intelligently — however narrow the range of their knowl- 
edge. 



The Centennial 39 

Moreover if we keep clearly in mind the true objective 
of our college work, we shall not be disturbed by the appeals 
or the demands of the apostles of vocational training. We 
will agree with them at the outset that the community 
needs higher schools which will train youth in varied forms 
of professional or commercial or industrial technique; 
and we will welcome the multiplication of such schools, 
not only as an advance in educational policy, but as a 
means of relief of our colleges from an overcrowding which 
may be a serious menace. But at the same time we will 
confidently insist that there is still room and need for in- . 
stitutions whose object it is to help youth learn how to 
think logically and intelligently in a variety of different 
subjects, simply because that will enable them to be better 
citizens and to live more satisfying lives. 

This assertion of our object in college teaching will help 
us also to escape from all who desire to exploit our colleges 
for any other end than that of the culture of intelligence. 
Amongst these are the propagandists of myriad shades of 
conviction. Colleges as colleges are interested in the 
imparting of sound knowledge and the development o£ 
intelligent and independent thinking. Those who seek to> 
make them the platforms for propaganda, however ex- 
cellent, are consciously or unconsciously seeking to exploit 
them for ends foreign to their purpose. In teaching 
science we seek to give students the essential facts of 
science and to train them in correct scientific thinking. I 
once asked our revered Professor Lattimore whether we 
were teaching any Industrial Chemistry in Rochester. 
He replied in his formal manner: "Mr. President we are 
doing our best to teach our students Chemistry; and we 
are convinced that when they enter industrial life they will 
be able to apply their knowledge to their industrial needs." 



40 HoBART College 

His position may have been extreme; but it was certainly- 
true to the college aim and purpose. So it is with History, 
or Economics. What we are set to do is to give our stu- 
dents the knowledge requisite for intelligent thinking and 
to give them sufficient exercise in such thinking to devel- 
op independence therein. And we are sure that the com- 
munity needs such intelligence and independence, and that 
if we will continue true to our task, ready to listen to all 
suggestions for its betterment, but resolute in resistance of 
all efforts to exploit our work for other ends, the commu- 
nity will recognize and welcome and support our work. 

I have spoken particularly of the work of our colleges 
because that is the work that Hobart has been doing for 
now one hundred years. That we exalt it here does 
not indicate blindness to the wider tasks of our universities 
or to the value of the newer and assuredly valuable tech- 
nical schools that the community is providing for youth 
who wish or need to proceed with no delay to some prac- 
tical training for some specific task. So great is the need 
just now, however, for clear and intelligent and indepen- 
dent thinking on many problems that do not fall within the 
boundaries of any technical training, that Hobart's cen- 
tennial gives timely opportunity for fresh recognition of the 
importance of Hobart's special task. 

Therefore I welcome this unexpected opportunity to 
«peak for your neighbors and colleagues, Mr. President, 
and on their behalf to wish for Hobart under your leader- 
ship a most auspicious entry on her second century of 
noble service. 



GREETINGS FROM THE UNIVERSITIES AND 
COLLEGES OF THE MIDDLE WEST 

BY PROFESSOR WARREN PLIMPTON LOMBARD, SC.D., OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 

Nine years ago I came to Geneva to be the recipient of a 
great honor from Hobart College. It was then that I 
received the degree of Doctor of Science from the hands 
of the most sincere, straight thinking man I have ever 
known, your former President, Langdon C. Stewardson. 
It is a rare man, whose presence is an intellectual and 
moral stimulus, and who arouses in others the best of 
which they are capable. Such a man is Stewardson — ^no 
one dares to have a mean thought in his presence. 

I now come as one of your honorary alumni, and have the 
pleasure of being the bearer of greetings and congratula- 
tions from the Colleges of the Middle West, and especially 
from the University of Michigan. These messages would 
have been presented in more suitable form by President 
Burton, had not previous engagements prevented him from 
coming to Geneva. 

It is particularly fitting that the Colleges of the Middle 
West should have a part in this celebration. They owe 
their existence largely to the foresight, the vision of the 
men of western New York, who came to join the pioneers in 
the frontier towns of what was first the North West Ter- 
ritory, and later the States of the Middle West. Just as 
the sons of New England spread through New York, so 
they and their sons migrated into the North West Territory. 
These men carried with them, not only their conviction of 
the importance of education, but that optimism which has 
done so much toward the development of this country. Is 
it not marvelous that, at the time when Hobart was founded 

41 



42 HoBART College 

one hundred years ago, when Ohio, Indiana and Michigan 
were in the process of forming, and there was only a handful 
of people scattered in sparse settlements in the wilderness 
or in the beginnings of towns, those men had the dream of 
a thriving population, and foresaw not only the need of 
schools but of universities. Think of General Cass, 
when he made the treaty with the Indians of the North 
West in 1817, arranging that there should be set aside 
three sections of land for a college; think of the one week- 
ly paper of the territory having articles dealing with higher 
education, and of an act arranging for a university being 
passed in 1817 by the Governor and Judges of the newly 
formed territory of Michigan, when it had a population of 
only 7,000 inhabitants. 

The University of Michigan in its present form did not 
come into being until Hobart was fifteen years old. 

We can think of Hobart and Michigan as belonging to 
the same family of colleges, and there is another more 
intimate tie connecting us. The founder of your College, 
Bishop Hobart, also played a large part in the founding of 
St. Andrews church in Ann Arbor, and a guild of that 
church, in which many succeeding generations of Michigan 
students have been active, is known as Hobart Guild. 

There is still another, and very vital tie, and one of which 
Michigan is proud. "By their fruits ye shall know them." 
If character building is the most important work of an 
institution whose business is to train men for their life work, 
a university is to be judged by the type of men it gives to 
the world. Michigan has pride in many of her sons, and 
claims with especial pride one whom you of Hobart all 
know well and love, — Dean William P. Durfee. He 
received his degree of A. B. at Michigan in 1876. Those 
were the days when Michigan University had an enroll- 
ment of 1,200 students, instead of the present number of 



««. 



The Centennial 43 

nearly 12,000. Hobart is rejoicing in its growth while 
Michigan is having it forced upon her that a large number 
of students entails many disadvantages. When William 
Durfee was at Michigan, it was still possible for members 
of the faculty to know many of the students personally, and 
i^|k for a student to Icnow at least the members of his own class. 

' Today much of the former personal contact is lacking, and 
the loss of this contact is a serious matter. Many men are 
recognizing this fact, and are saying — "I would prefer to 
send my son to a small college rather than to a large univer- 
sity." It being more and more felt that much of the work 

I that is now being done at the large universities will have to 
be done in the colleges, and that they must play a part of 
ever increasing importance in the educational life of the 
country. Certainly the value of institutions of learning 
is not to be judged from their size but by the men that they 
develop. Hobart has only to look at her alumni, to 
mirror her own worth. Not only can Hobart look to her 
past with pride, but she can look forward to ever increasing 
usefulness in the future. She is so fortunate as to have as 
her President, Murray Bartlett, who, through the training 

J of the College and of the Church, of being the head of 
a new University, of organizing a Graduate School of 
Tropical Medicine and Public Hygiene, of playing a man's 

"jpart in the World War and finally of being the President of 
"■^this College, has acquired a breadth of view which enables 
him to recognize the importance of both the Liberal Arts 
and the Sciences. 

Before I close I wish to emphasize that which you all must 
feel, that the men of the rising generation will need far 
more than those who preceded them, a training in Physics, 
Chemistry and Biology. They will live in a world which 
will undergo mitold changes through the advances of sci- 
ence. They must be familiar with the fundamental facts of 



44 HoBART College 

science if they are to keep pace with their times. The 
hberal arts, rehgion and the sciences must work side by 
side to develop a better and a stronger race of men. 

A striking phrase is a lever to turn the balance of thought 
and too often to throw the weight of prejudice against 
reason. We used to hear of "The Conflict of Science and 
Religion." If the sentence stops there, one sees them as 
enemies; finish the line, — "The Conflict of Science and 
Religion with Ignorance and Evil," and they are allies in 
the fight against the forces which work to keep men down, 
physically and morally. 

The sciences which are fundamental to hygiene and 
medicine should be especially strengthened. The teach- 
ing of hygiene and physical training in our schools must 
be improved. Our people must be made to recognize the 
importance of the care of the health and physical devel- 
opment of our youth, if we are not to have the humil- 
iating picture of physical unfitness, revealed at the time of 
the war draft, remain as shameful evidence of our neglect. 
Think of it, in a new country, blessed with all that nature 
could provide for the health of men, thirty -nine per cent 
were found unfit and had to be refused the privilege of 
serving their country in its time of need. The modern 
teaching of sciences is expensive, both because of the lab- 
oratory space which is required, and the cost of the in- 
dispensable instrumental equipment; nevertheless this 
expense must be carried. 

Let me in closing again express on behalf of the Colleges 
of the Middle West their congratulations on the record 
Hobart has made during the past one hundred years, and 
their confidence that the next hundred will be no less 
successful. 



GREETINGS FROM THE CHURCH COLLEGES 

BY PRESIDENT REMSEN BRINCKERHOFF OGILBY, LL.D., OF 
TRINITY COLLEGE 

The dearest birthday presents we receive are those from 
the members of our own family. So Trinity today with 
great affection gives, in the name of the Church Colleges of 
our country, Kenyon, St. Stephens', University of the 
South and Trinity, her greeting to her elder sister Hobart. 
Not so much elder after all — a single year. Close be- 
hind stands another younger sister — Kenyon. The fact 
that these three church colleges celebrate their Centennials 
within one year of each other is not a mere matter of 
coincidence but is a definite witness to the history of the 
Church and education in America. 

In the early days of the American Colonies, the trans- 
planting to these shores of the worship of the mother 
church of England was not an easy task. The lack of a 
local Episcopate made it difficult if not almost impossible 
to recruit the ministry from among the young men of the 
church here, as a long perilous voyage stood between them 
and Holy Orders. In New England also the estab- 
lishments of local church organizations not altogether 
friendly to the Church of England made it difficult for 
those who wished to adhere to the mother church of their 
own country. The Venerable Association for the Propaga- 
tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts did much to maintain 
a supply of men of a fine type. Then came the Revolu- 
tion. In some parts of our country the fact that the 
clergymen fled to Canada gave the church a Tory label and 
placed the people imder a certain amount of suspicion. 
The union of the Colonies, however, brought to the church 
in New England the prestige of Virginia and other colonies, 

45 



46 HoBART College 

and most certainly the faith of our first President and of 
many other leaders in the Federal Government who were 
loyal in their allegiance to the Church of England restored 
the respect to which the church was entitled. When a 
local Episcopate was secured and the church organized upon 
a national basis, great expansion followed. The war of 
1812 removed any doubt that might be still left in the 
minds of any New England Puritans and patriots as to the 
loyalty of the Episcopal church, and the opposition, which 
up to that time had hindered the development of the 
institutional life of the Church, disappeared. The natural 
result was an intense social self -consciousness which showed 
itself in the growth of educational institutions. Schools 
and colleges were founded in response to the definite 
demand for an educated ministry and the Missionary 
Society came into being. So the birth of these three 
sisters within a year of each other bears witness to the 
awakened life of the Church of these shores. 

The tie that binds Hobart and Trinity is yet more close 
by reason of the breadth of their charters. Other colleges 
one hundred years ago were still bound by restrictions of 
adherence to religious platforms, and all through the last 
century colleges have been founded in the conviction that 
it was good to segregate students of a single denomination 
within academic walls. The minds of the founders of 
Hobart and Trinity ran along different channels. Their 
loyalty to the Church was definite, and as a result the 
contribution made by these colleges to the life of the Church 
has been great ; but it has been their purpose to offer an 
education, fundamentally religious, to young men of 
America upon a basis of absolute catholicity. The fear- 
lessness of the charter of Hobart is characteristic of the 
fearlessness of the contribution of our communion to 



The Centennial 47 

church unity, and the completion of these one hundred 
years serves to demonstrate the wisdom of the founders of 
this college. 

One might mention at great length the personal ties that 
have bound together Hobart and Trinity but at this time 
two names will suffice — George Williamson Smith, now 
President Emeritus of Trinity, graduated from Hobart in 
1857 and after a career which included service of his 
country as a Chaplain in the Navy, he came to Trinity as 
president of that College. Of an earlier generation was 
Abner Jackson, who graduated from Trinity in 1837 and 
served Hobart as tutor and professor for twenty-one years, 
finally being elected president of that institution, which 
oflBce he held until he was called back in his last years to be 
president of Trinity. 

It is not necessary to multiply other examples of aca- 
demic interchange, but the greetings of Trinity on this 
occasion would not be complete without the personal word 
of friendship between the heads of the two institutions who 
in other years bore the burden and heat of the tropic day 
on the other side of the world. May the coming century 
give to Hobart still greater opportunities to continue the 
service to the Church which has made her name honored 
and loved wherever known. 



GREETINGS FROM THE BOARD OF REGENTS 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF 

NEW YORK 

BY CHARLES BEATTY ALEXANDER, LITT.D., LL.D., REGENT 

Mr. Chancellor, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The University of the State of New York is the greatest 
and most far-reaching institution in the world, and Hobart 
College is an important integral part thereof. The Regents 
of the University have instructed the Vice-Chancellor, Adel- 
bert Moot, President Graves and myself to appear here and 
present to you this parchment document which conveys to 
the Trustees, Faculty, Alumni and students of Hobart 
College their warm felicitations upon this eventful occasion 
and their recognition of the great work which Hobart 
has performed during the century which has passed. 

The Vice-Chancellor is unfortunately prevented from 
being present. When he requested me to take his place in 
presenting the greeting of the Regents, he laid upon me 
two injunctions. One was, under no circumstances to 
make any preparation on this occasion, and the second 
was to give a sportive effect to my greetings. I told him 
that while I would not venture to compare myself to Sam- 
son, nor this cultured, distinguished body of people to 
Philistines, at the same time I would remind him that the 
only recorded case of anyone being called to make sport 
before an audience was one in which the chief actor took 
hold of the pillars of the building and pulled the roof down 
on the heads of the audience. I furthermore intimated 
that I had no wish to come to make a Geneva holiday. 

As I see that President Graves is reserved as a kind of 
dessert for the forthcoming banquet, I do not undertake to 
speak further for the Regents on this occasion, but would 

48 



The Centennial 4& 

like to allude to the relation which Bishop Hobart had to 
Princeton. I do this with more satisfaction, as I am not 
only a Princeton graduate, but a Doctor of Laws of that 
institution. 

I have listened with interest and satisfaction to what the 
learned Dean of the College has said in regard to Bishop 
Hobart 's relation to Princeton. It has struck me that 
perhaps the tone, while entirely cordial and friendly, might 
be slightly tinctured by its Episcopal source and audience, 
reminding me in a pleasant way of a catechism which was 
printed in Oxford about 1833, wherein the question was 
asked, "How should we treat Presbyterians?", and the 
answer was, "We should treat them with kindness, but 
should pay no attention to their idle prattle." Should 
this anecdote tend to give any offense to any present, I 
would add another one. There was a colonel in South 
Carolina who said he was an Episcopalian, and that while 
he believed a person could be saved in the Methodist 
Episcopal or Roman Catholic churches, a gentleman would 
think twice before he permitted himself to be saved by 
any such irregular methods. In saying this, I make no 
reflection upon the Dean's address, which I think was one 
of the best academic discourses I have ever heard. 

It is delightful to recall the great company which sur- 
rounded the young Hobart in Princeton. The President of 
the institution was John Witherspoon, scholar, sage, 
patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence, just 
preparing to retire to his rural seat, "Tusculum," amid 
the plaudits of a grateful nation. There was Samuel 
Stanhope Smith, Vice-President of the College, one of the 
most cultured and learned educators of his day, an elegant 
scholar, and I use the word elegant in the eighteenth cen- 
tury sense. He was an intimate friend of Hobart as long as 
both lived. There was Richard Rush, and many others. 



50 HoBART College 

This was the time when Pruieeton was beginning its 
great work of training men to be Episcopal Bishops. One 
can recall Bishop Johns, of Virginia, moving with stately 
step through the shades of the eighteenth century. There 
was Mcllvaine, who carried the banner of the Cross into 
what were then the wild regions of Ohio. There was the 
cultured and polished Littlejohn of Long Island, and if I 
should go outside the Bishopric, I would refer to the fact 
that Nicholas Murray, the ancestor of Nicholas Murray 
Butler, was a Princeton graduate, as well as the brilliant 
and witty Dr. Coxe, father of Bishop Coxe. 

Young Hobart made his determination while in Prince- 
ton to become one of the soldiers of the Cross. The Lord 
revealed Himself in his plain little room in Nassau Hall, 
just as He revealed Himself to St. Francis of Assisi, who 
saw his Savior's image limned upon the wall of his bare 
cell; just as He appeared to St. Paul on the road to Da- 
mascus, and I might say to young Samuel ere the light of 
the lamp had gone out in the temple of the Lord where the 
Ark of God was, and Hobart obeyed the call. One of the 
results of his obedience is this great institution of learning. 
Would that such apparitions might come to our young men 
of the present day in our institutions of learning, and to 
students who are wondering how best they can serve their 
nation, mankind and their Master. 



Note: The College regrets that a copy of the address, "The 
Future of Hobart," delivered by the Rt. Rev. Charles Henry Brent, 
LL.D., is not available for publication. 



CONFERRING OF HONORARY DEGREES 

The candidates were presented by Professor H. H. 
Yeames, A.M., as follows: 

"Mr. President: For the honorary degree of Doctor of 
Sacred Theology I present to you the Rev. Caleb Rochford 
Stetson, Rector of Trinity Church, New York, Bachelor 
of Arts of Harvard University, Bachelor of Divinity of 
the General Theological Seminary, Doctor of Divinity of 
St. Stephen's College and of Columbia University . Preacher, 
pastor, and organizer of good works, devoted and efficient 
servant of the Church, in this year of Hobart's Centennial, 
he has been called to the ministry of one of the oldest and 
greatest parishes in the country, a parish with which our 
college has from its beginning been intimately and grate- 
fully associated, to which it has always looked as in truth 
an Alma Mater. As rector of Trinity Church he stands in 
apostolic succession to the great Bishop Hobart, whose 
honored name we are proud to bear, and represents a 
parish that came to the rescue of Hobart College in its 
darkest hour and that for seventy years has given generous 
support to the work of the college. As a teacher of 
righteousness and vigorous example of Christian citizen- 
ship and leadership, Hobart on her Centennial Day gladly 
welcomes him among her adopted sons." 

"Mr. President: For the honorary degree of Doctor of 
Laws, I present to you George Woodward Wickersham, 
lawyer, statesman, patriot, churchman, sometime Attorney- 
General of the United States, delegate to the Hobart 
Centennial from the University of Pennsylvania, and our 
Phi Beta Kappa orator in this Centennial year. Chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee of the New York Constitu- 
tional Convention, president of the Bar Association of the 

51 



62 HoBART College 

City of New York, trustee and vice-president of the New 
York Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor, 
and of the Carnegie Institute at Washington, trustee of 
the University of Pennsylvania , he has loyally served the 
Church as well as the State and has sustained amid the 
stress of public affairs the interests of a scholar and the 
love of literature. Hobart College warmly welcomes to 
her Centennial so distinguished a representative of a 
great and venerable University and is proud to do honor 
to one so eminent in the State and Church which this 
College has tried to serve during one hundred years." 

"Mr. President: I present to you for the honorary 
degree of Doctor of Laws Frank Pierrepont Graves, Presi- 
dent of the University of the State of New York, whose 
widely varied and highly distinguished career in the pro- 
fession of education has led him, in this our Centennial 
Year, to one of the most influential and responsible 
positions in that profession. In him we greet the leader of 
the vast and complex educational system of which Hobart 
College is but a small though not, we trust, an altogether 
insignificant part, and we rejoice to honor one so admirably 
equipped for his great office by successful experience as 
Professor of Greek at Tufts College, as President of the 
University of Washington, as Professor of the History 
of Education at the University of Missouri and at the 
Ohio State University, as Dean of the School of Education 
of the University of Pennsylvania, and as author of many 
books in his wide field of study. To such guidance as his 
the cause of education for democracy is safely entrusted, 
for none better than he understands the importance to 
the present of lessons of the past, the value to the State of 
good teaching and the dangers of bad teaching. Ho- 
bart College which has long been faithful to the best 
traditions of classical education, particularly delights to 



The Centennial 53 

honor as a leader of the educational system of this State 
a classical scholar, a historian of classical ideals, an ex- 
ponent of the practical value in modern life of the priceless 
heritage of Greek civilization." 

"Mr. President: I present to you for the honorary 
degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Livingston Farrand, 
scientist, educator, philanthropist, who in this year of our 
Centennial has been called from a great and honorable 
work of public service to the presidency of our neighbor 
institution of learning, our younger, though bigger 
brother, (or should I say sister?) Cornell University. 
Professor of Psychology and Anthropology at Columbia 
University, treasurer of the American Health Association, 
editor of the American Journal of Public Health, president 
of the University of Colorado, executive secretary of the 
National Association for the Study and Prevention of 
Tuberculosis; during and after the war, director of the 
tuberculosis work in France of the International Health 
Board and chairman of the Central Committee of the 
American Red Cross and director of its work in Europe, 
he brings to American education a vision of world-wide 
service, and stands as few men can for the humanities in 
the truest and widest sense of the word. In him Hobart 
College gives her modest recognition to a great leader in the 
great allied causes of humane education and the promotion 
of human welfare." 

In awarding the degree of Doctor of Laws to William 
Pitt Durfee, Dean of Hobart College, President Bartlett 
spoke as follows : 

"William Pitt Durfee, mathematician, teacher, adminis- 
trator: Bachelor of Arts of Michigan University, Doctor 
of Philosophy of Johns Hopkins University, Fellow of 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 
Professor of Mathematics and Dean of Hobart College; 



54 HoBART College 

You are presented for the degree of Doctor of Laws, 
honoris causa, not by formal speech but by the loving 
devotion of forty classes of Hobart men to whom you 
have been counselor and friend." 



THE CENTENNIAL LUNCHEON 

The principal address at the Centennial Luncheon, 
held in the New York State Armory, was delivered by 
President Frank Pierrepont Graves, LL.D., Commissioner 
of Education for the State of New York. Among the 
other speakers called upon by the toastmaster, the Rev. 
Alexander Mann, '81, were Professor Dana Carlton Munro, 
L.H.D., of Princeton University, the Very Rev. H. E. 
Fosbroke, D.D., Dean of the General Theological Sem- 
inary, Frederick Scheetz Jones, LL.D., Dean of Yale 
College, Henry A. Prince, '82, Trustee of Hobart College, 
and Frederick W. Herendeen, '92, Chairman of the Hobart 
Centennial Fund Committee. 



DEDICATION OF THE WAR MEMORIAL 

Special dedication exercises were held on the campus 
on the afternoon of June 13th in connection with the 
unveiling of a memorial bench erected in honor of the 
Hobart men who died in the war. The names of the men, 
the memory of whose devotion and sacrifice is thus per- 
petuated, are: 



William Swift Martin, '93 

Rev. Harry P. Sej'^mour, '94 

John Rumsey SanfoT-d, '97 

Frank Wakefield Koch, '98 

Horace Albert Chouinard, '99 

Robert Douglas Meacham, '07 

Randall Crawford, '07 

Wilhelmus Mynderse Rice, '09 

Merritt Cole Rogers, '10 

Edwin Douglas Roberts, '11 

Oliver Phelps Jackson, '12 

Kenneth Cleveland Hyde, '16 

William D'Orville Doty, '19 

Arthur Cleveland Coxe, '19 

Morton Altice Way, '19 
Harold CuUinan Smith, '20 



After the invocation by the Rev. John B. Hubbs, Chap- 
lain of the College, and the reading of the names by 
Lewis W. Gracey, '19, the presentation of the bench to the 
College was made by Mandeville J. Barker, '13 and accep- 
ted by President Bartlett. Bishop Brent then made a 
brief address and the ceremonies were brought to a close 
with military honors appropriate to the occasion. 



DELEGATES IN ATTENDANCE 

Harvard University 

Joseph Hetherington McDaniels, A.M., LL.D., 
Professor Emeritus of the Greek Language and 
Literature, Hobart College 
Yale University 

Frederick Scheetz Jones, LL.D., Dean of Yale College 
University of Pennsylvania 

George Woodward Wickersham, LL.D., Alumnus and 
Trustee 
Princeton University 

Dana Carleton Munro, A.M., L.H.D., Dodge Profes- 
sor of Mediaeval History 
Columbia University 

Herbert E. Hawkes, A.M., Ph.D., Professor of 
Mathematics, Dean of Columbia College 
Brown University 

Wilfred Harold Munro, A.M., L.H.D., Professor 
Emeritus of European History 
Rutgers College 

Rev. Livingston L. Taylor, A.B., A.M., Alumnus 
Dartmouth College 

Wilbur Marshall Urban, A.M., Ph.D., Professor of 
Philosophy 

University of Maryland 

Eugene Curtis Auchter, B.S., M.S., Head of the 
Department of Horticulture 
University of the State of New York 

Frank Pierrepont Graves, Ph.D., Litt.D., L.H.D., 
LL.D., President of the University and Commissioner 
of Education 
Charles Beatty Alexander, Litt.D., LL.D., Regent 
University of Vermont 

Dennie Hammond Udall, D.V.M., Professor of Vet- 
erinary Medicine and Hygiene, Cornell University 

67 



58 HoBART College 

Bowdoin College 

Kenneth Charles Morton Sills, LL.D., President 
Union College 

John Brewster Hubbs, A.B., B.D., D.D., D.C.L., 
Chaplain, Hobart College 
General Theological Seminary 

Very Rev. Hughell Fosbroke, D.D., Dean 
Auburn Theological Seminary 

Rev. George B. Stewart, D.D., LL.D., S.T.D., 
President 
University of Pittsburgh 

Lawrence I. MacQueen, A.M., Assistant Professor 

of Finance 
Rev. Fredrick G. Budlong, D.D. 
Indiana University 

Frank Snyder, M.D., Alumnus 
Amherst College 

Rev. E. H. Dickinson, D.D., Alumnus 
Trinity College, Hartford 

Rev. Remsen Brinckerhoff Ogilby, A.M., LL.D., 
President 
Kenyon College 

Henry Titus West, A.M., Professor of German 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 

William P. Mason, M.D., Sc.D., LL. D., Head of 
the Department of Chemistry and Chemical En- 
gineering 
Western Reserve University 

Harold North Fowler, Ph.D., Professor of Greek 
Wesleyan University 

Watson Thomas Dunmore, LL.B., A.M., Alumnus 
Lafayette College 

Rev. W. W. Weller, D.D., Alumnus 
Haverford College 

William Lloyd Garrison Williams, A.M., Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Cornell Uni- 
versity 



The Centennial 59 

Oherlin College 

Edwin Fauver, M.D., Physical Director, University 
of Rochester 
Norwich University 

Charles C. Brill, A.M., Ph.D., Alumnus 
Alfred University 

Charles Fergus Binns, Sc.M., Director of New York 
State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics at 
Alfred University 
Mount Holyoke College 

Ada L. F. Snell, Ph.D., Professor of English 
University of Michigan 

,Warren P. Lombard, M.D., Sc.D., Professor of 
Physiology 
Notre Dame University 

Francis T. McGrain, LL.B., Alumnus 
University of Toronto 

Rev. George Cross, M.A., Ph.D., D.D., Professor of 
Systematic Theology, Rochester Theological Sem- 
inary 
New York State College for Teachers 

Rev. Leonard Woods Richardson, A.M., LL.D., Pro- 
fessor of Latin 
University of Buffalo 

Julian Park, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Arts and 
Sciences 
The College of the City of New York 

Herbert R. Moody, A.M., Ph.D., Professor of Chem- 
istry 
University of Wisconsin 

Charles W. Cabeen, M.L., A.M., Docteur de I'uni- 
versite, Grenoble, Professor of Romance Languages, 
Syracuse University 
DeLancey Divinity School 

Rev. George Sherman Burrows, D.D., Warden 
University of Rochester 

Rev. Rush Rliees, D.D., LL.D., President 
Annette G. Munro, A.M., Dean of Women 



60 HoBART College 

Rochester Theological Seminary 

Rev. Joseph William Alexander Stewart, D.D., LL.D., 
Dean 
University of Minnesota 

George M. B. Hawley, LL.B., LL.M., Alumnus 
Washington University 

John Randolph Lindsay, A.B., Instructor in English 

Berkeley Divinity School 

Rev. Fleming James, Ph.D., Professor of the Litera- 
ture and Interpretation of the Old Testament 

Ehnira College 

Hollister Adelbert Hamilton, Ph.D., Professor of 
Classical Philology and Vice-President 
Pennsylvania State College 

James Davis Harlan, B.S., Assistant Agronomist, New 
York State Agricultural Experiment Station 
St. Lawrence University 

Arthur H. Van Brocklin, B.S., Alumnus 
Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Phila- 
delphia 

Rev. George C. Foley, D.D., Church of the Holy 
Trinity, Professor of Systematic Divinity 
Seabury Divinity School 

Rev. William Austin Smith, S.D., Alumnus, Editor 
of the "Churchman" 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Martin Herbert Eisenhart, B.S., S.B., Alumnus 
St. Stephen's College 

Rev. Charles A. Jessup, D.D., Alumnus 
Vassar College 

Mrs. Claude C. Lytic, A.B., Alumna 
Robert College, Constantinople 

Bertram V. D. Post, M, D., Professor of Biology, 
College Physician 
Cornell University 

Livingston Farrand, A.M., M.D., LL.D., President 
University of Kentucky 

Charles Hoeing, A.B., Dean of Men, University of 
Rochester 



The Centennial 61 

Lehigh University 

David R. Smith, M.E., Alumnus 
Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge 

Rev. Max Kellner, A.M., D.D., Professor of the Lit- 
erature and Interpretation of the Old Testament 

University of Illinois 

Hugh Glasgow, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Ento- 
mology, New York State Agricultural Experiment 
Station 

Boston University 

Rev. Josiah H. Slutz, S.T.B., A.B., Alumnus 

University of Nebraska 

Roscoe Wilfred Thatcher, A.M., Ph.D., Director of 
the New York State Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tion 
Canisius College 

Rev. Michael J. Ahern, S.J., President 
Hunter College of the City of New York 

Margaret A. Graham, A.M., Ph.D., Professor of 
Biology 
Ohio State University 

Joseph A. Leighton, Ph. D., Professor of Philosophy 

Smith College 

Howard Rollin Patch, Ph.D., Associate Professor of 
English 
Vanderbilt University 

John Pickett Turner, A.M., Ph.D., Professor of Phi- 
losophy, The College of the City of New York 

Colorado College 

Rev. J. B. Kettle, A.B., B.D., Alumnus 

Johns Hopkins University 

Albert B. Faust, Ph.D., Professor of German, Cor- 
nell University 
Lake Forest College 

Rev. E. Lloyd Jones, A.B., B.D., Alumnus 
University of Colorado 

Robert S. Breed, M.S., Ph.D., Chief in Research, 
Division of Bacteriology, New York State Agri- 
cultural Experiment Station 



62 HoBART College 

Raddiffe College 

Mrs. Horace A. Eaton, A.B., Alumna 
Alma College 

Lester W. Sharp, Ph.D., Professor of Botany, Cor- 
nell University 
Occidental College 

Lowell Chawner, A.B., Alumnus. 
Teachers College 

Isabelle L. Pratt, Recorder 
Clark University 

Ernest William Rettger, Ph.D., Assistant Professor 
of Applied Mechanics, Cornell University 
University of Chicago 

Edward John Williamson, Ph.D., Professor of Modern 
Languages, Hobart College 
Stanford University 

Bristow Adams, A.B., Professor, State College of Ag- 
riculture, Cornell University 
Keuka College 

Rev. Homer C. Lyman, A.M., D.D., Vice-President 
Carnegie Institute of Technology 

Cleveland Beach Coe, B.S., Alumnus 
Sweet Briar College 

Katharine Lummis, A.M., Ph.D., Dean 
American Association for the Advancement of Science 

Percival John Parrott, A.B., A.M., Entomologist, 
New York State Agricultural Experiment Station 
American Chemical Society 

William Ridgeley Orndorff, Ph.D., Professor of Or- 
ganic Chemistry, Cornell University 
American Mathematical Society 

John Henry Tanner, Ph.D., Professor of Mathe- 
matics, Cornell University 
American Philological Association 

Theodore A. Miller, A.M., Assistant Professor of 
Classics, University of Rochester 
American Psychological Association 

Karl M. Dallenbach, A.M., Ph.D., Assistant Pro- 
fessor of Psychology, Cornell University 



The Centennial 63 

American Society of Mechanical Engineers 

Harte Cooke, Honorary Vice-President 
New York Academy of Sciences 

Elon Howard Eaton, A.B., A.M., Professor of Biol- 
ogy, Hobart College 
American Historical Society 

Leonard Axtelle Lawson, Ph.D., Professor of Hist- 
ory, Hobart College 
New York State Agricultural Experiment Station 

Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick, Ph.D., Vice-Director 
United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa 

Clark S. Northup, Ph.D., Member of Senate of Phi 
Beta Kappa, Professor of English, Cornell Univer- 
sity 
Department of Religious Education of the Presiding Bishop 
and Council 

Rev. Paul Micou, A.M., Secretary for Work in Col- 
leges and Universities. 
Department of Religious Education of the Diocese of Western 
New York 

Rev. Charles A. Jessup, D.D., President 
DeVeaux School 

Rev. William Stanley Barrows, A.M., Headmaster 
Geneva High School 

A, J. Merrell, A.B., A.M., Superintendent of Schools 
St. Francis de Sales High School 

Rt. Rev. Monsignor Joseph W. Hendrick 
City of Geneva 

Robert A. Catchpole, Mayor 
Board of Education, Geneva 

Claude C. Lytle, M.D., Member 
Geneva Chamber of Commerce 
3. P. Rice, President 



THE PHI BETA KAPPA ORATION 

DELIVERED AT COMMENCEMENT BY THE HON. GEORGE W. 
WICKERSHAM, LL.D. 

That was a charming phrase which President Elliot was 
accustomed to use in conferring the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts upon the graduates of Harvard College: "I admit you 
to the society of educated men." 

Perhaps the expression is somewhat ambiguous. It might 
be interpreted to signify admission to full membership in 
a brotherhood of cultivated folk. But I doubt if that 
great teacher meant to confer complete fellowship upon 
the mere winners of certificates of compliance with under- 
graduate student requirements alone. It appears to me 
to be more consonant with his profound scholarship and 
proved sagacity to assume that he certified to the attain- 
ment of the first stage in intellectual progress as that 
which entitled the student to the privilege of association 
with those who had earned the distinction of being ed- 
ucated men. What is education and when can a man 
truly be said to have become educated? The question 
is as old as human history and is susceptible of many 
answers as varying as the speakers. 

Yet there must be some sure criterion by which to test 
the problem. The power of knowledge controlled by dis- 
cretion, which is wisdom, has been extolled by philosophers 
from the earliest days of recorded history. "Every pru- 
dent man worketh with knowledge." "Knowledge is 
easy to him that hath understanding." "Understanding 
is a well-spring of life unto him that hath it." 

Through wisdom is an house builded. 
And by understanding it is established, 
And by knowledge are the chambers filled 
With all precious and pleasant riches. 

These are some of the aphorisms by which wisdom, as 
the object of knowledge, is extolled in the book of the 
Proverbs of Solomon. Generations later, Paul wrote to 
the Corinthians, "For the Jews require a sign, and the 

66 



66 HoBABT College 

Greeks seek after wisdom." But the Jewish quest for a 
sign was that they might have the assurance of knowledge. 
True, this degenerated into a looking for "signs and por- 
tents," abnormal happenings, so that when certain of the 
scribes and Pharisees came to the Master demanding of 
him a sign from Heaven, he answered: "When it is 
evening ye say. It will be fair weather; for the heaven is red. 
And in the morning, it will be foul weather today: for the 
heaven is red and lowering. Ye know how to discern the 
face of the heaven; but ye cannot discern the signs of the 
times." 

It is far harder to read the hearts of men and to foresee 
the tendencies of human action than it is to forecast the 
weather, or to solve a problem in chemistry or physics. 
A knowledge of material things, even the discovery of the 
operations of the material forces of nature, their control 
and application to the service of mankind, which lies 
within the domain of science, is not so difficult as it is to ex- 
plore and to learn the heart and the spirit of mankind and 
to comprehend the infinite variety, the subtle workings 
and the hidden tendencies of the human mind. Through- 
out the ages, "The proper study of mankind, is man." 
Hence it is that education, in the truest sense, is the study 
and acquisition of a sympathetic knowledge of human 
thought, human institutions, human expression and human 
tendencies. 

Emerson says: "There is one mind common to all in- 
dividual men. . . Who hath access to this universal mind, 
is a party to all that is or can be done." 

The clue to the future of humanity, therefore, is to be 
found in the history of its past. "Of the universal mind," 
again says Emerson, "each individual man is one more 
incarnation." The society of educated men, therefore, is 
made up of those who through sympathy, tolerance and 
knowledge of the history of man, have come to understand 
humanity. The first step to the attainment of these 
qualifications is fellowship with the great ones who have 
plumbed the depths of human nature and have for the 
guidance of generations to come mapped out the ways of 
human thought and action and spirit. Through this 
association, we are led to realize the oneness of humanity 



The Centennial 67 

of all time — that humanity which is the same in every 
successive generation, and yet which always is capable 
of new forms of expression. Browning writes : 

In man's self arise 
August anticipations, symbols, types 
Of a dim splendor ever on before. 
In that eternal circle run of life; 
For men begin to pass their nature's bound. 
And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant 
Their proper joys and griefs, and outgrow all 
The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade 
Before the unmeasured thirst for good; while peace 
Rises within them even more and more. 

Lowell once wrote an essay on what he termed "The 
Five Indispensable Authors" — Homer, Dante, Milton, 
Shakspere and Cervantes. Last year all Italy united 
in commemorating the six hundredth anniversary of the 
death of one of these — Dante Alighieri. During the entire 
year, eulogies of him were pronounced in schools and col- 
leges and in public places. Special editions of his works 
of all kinds were issued from editions de luxe, at prices 
available only to the rich, to those at figures within reach 
of the most humble. Newspapers published readable edi- 
tions at merely nominal prices. Italians of every class 
united in manifold expressions of a common appreciation 
of this fourteenth century writer who, first to use the 
common Italian tongue, made it the vehicle of the ex- 
pression of thought, so universal, that the entire civilized 
world throughout six centuries has claimed him as its 
own, and every people has made him, who was exiled from 
his own fatherland, an adopted and honored citizen of 
theirs. In other lands, too, like tributes were paid to this 
great poet. For once democracy forsook its congenial 
occupation of detraction of the great, and united in un- 
broken praise. Even if the object of this uplifting ex- 
ercise were dead six hundred years, it is none the less 
heartening that an entire people should unite in laudation of 
the life and work of a man who had been as one of them. 
What is it that has preserved the Florentine poet and 
philosopher through all these centuries so real, so human, 
so vital to men of different races? Whole libraries of ex- 
position, of criticism of Dante and his works have been 



68 HoBART College 

written, all of which together prove the universal character 
of his genius. Professor Grandgent of Harvard gives 
three reasons for the fact that Dante is such a living pres- 
ence today, and after six centuries and all the changes they 
have brought, still "holds the reader with such an un- 
relaxing grip," These three are, his character, his liter- 
ary power, his relation to his age. 

"We love him," he says, "for his healthy manly vigor, 
for the intensity of his emotions, for his positiveness, his 
fixed moral standards, his unswerving faith. We admire 
his soaring imagination, his strong union of mystic ideal- 
ism with clear vision of reality in all its details, his con- 
structive skill, his deftness in portraiture, his command of 
the resources of diction and of verse. We are fascinated 
by his exhibition of the deeds, the thoughts, the beliefs, 
the passions of a far distant day." 

Francesco De Sanctis, one of the most distinguished of 
contemporary commentators of Dante, in a recent work, 
Pagine Dantesche, says that "Dante's system of philos- 
ophy was not a pure and serene speculation, like the Re- 
public of Plato, but it had entire possession of the man. 
It was not only his conviction, but his abiding faith. And 
faith is not only to believe, but to will, to love, to work; 
it is not only reflection but sentiment and action. Dante 
had faith. He had faith in God, in virtue, in country, in 
love, in glory, in the destiny of the human race. His faith 
was so active that misfortune and deceptions could not 
weaken it." 

Dante's knowledge was limited by his time. The 
science of his day was elementary in comparison with that 
of ours. The world has long outgrown his astronomical 
conceptions and the material limitations of his theology. 
But the fateful love of Paolo and Francesca, whose 
greatest sorrow was to remember the happy days in their 
misery; the tragic story of Count Ugolino and his sons' 
patriotism; of Sordello, who merely at the sweet sound of 
his city's name fell upon Virgil's neck and would have 
made a festival for him even there in Purgatory; the 
picture of the frosty morning, when the ragged peasant 
looks out upon the fields whitened with hoar frost and 
paces his hut as a mouse in a trap, beating his flanks for 



The Centennial 69 

warmth, until he laughs with hope to see the snow melting 
away under the waxing sun, then seizing his staff drives 
forth his flock to pasture — these things touch the hearts 
of men of all the ages, as does all great art which reveals 
the universality of human thought and experience. 

"What seekest thou?" a friar asked of Dante. The 
reply was, "Peace." "This," De Sanctis says,"all his con- 
temporaries sought. Peace was the concord of the earth- 
ly kingdom with the heavenly kingdom, of the soul with 
God. Adveniat regnum tuum." 

Despite the obsolete ecclesiastical conceptions of 
Dante's great poem, despite the intense personal hatreds 
which led him to depict his enemies as undergoing the 
refinements of torture in the material hell he painted, 
Dante is of every age and nation. He is cosmopolitan 
and immortal because he read rightly the hearts of men; 
because of his faith in the providence of God and the 
high destiny of man and because he has expressed that 
faith in inspired and enthralling verse. 

It was well for the whole civilized world to unite, as it 
did last year, with Italy in celebrating the life of this man. 

Onorate I'altissimo poeta; 
L'ombra sua torna, cb'era dipartita. 

Again, this year, France is celebrating the three hun- 
dredth anniversary of the birth of its greatest dramatic 
poet, Moli^re. He is not one of those whom Lowell se- 
lected as the indispensable authors. But, in a high de- 
gree, he was the personification of the peculiar genius of 
French character and intellect. His life and thought 
were remote from those of the great Florentine. Unlike 
him, he did not tread the high reaches of human in- 
spiration, with his eyes fixed upon the celestial stars. 
More like our English Shakspere, he was of humble 
origin, and like him, he was an actor before he was an 
author, writing his plays — all of them — for presentation 
on the stage. He remained an actor to the end of his 
life. But in an age when the morals of the stage were 
proverbially loose, it is recorded that his private character 
was remarkable for gentleness, probity, generosity and 
delicacy." In very few instances has any one of the great 
society of educated men been lacking in that sincerity 



70 HoBAET College 

of character which commands respect for his judgment. 
The example of Bacon, "The wisest, brightest, meanest of 
mankind," is so exceptional, as to prove the universality 
of the rule. 

Moliere was a writer of comedy. He held the mirror 
up to nature. He satirized the foibles and follies of his 
day. He lacked the universality of Dante or Shaks- 
pere. His characters, the most widely known of them, 
are essentially French. His writing is markedly idiomatic. 
His plays do not translate well into English. They are 
known but superficially to those who are unfamiliar with 
the French language. Yet he is the object of the pride 
and veneration of all Frenchmen. The theatre which he 
founded has been continued since his death, as the temple 
of the highest dramatic art in the world today. He cre- 
ated some great characters, who have become familiar 
acquaintances even with English-speaking people: Tar- 
tuff e, the personification of hyprocisy; Harpagon, the 
miser, who had such an aversion to the word give that he 
never said, "I give you good day," but "I lend you good 
day;" Mascarille, the cunning, roguish lackey; Alceste, 
perfect type of the lover whose jealous passion carries him 
to the point of desiring that no one should find his mistress 
loveable; that she should be reduced to a lot of wretched- 
ness, that Heaven should have given her nothing at 
birth, that she should have had neither rank, nor station, 
nor wealth — 

Afin que de mon coeur I'eclatant sacrifice 
Vous piJt d'un pareil sort r^parer I'injustice; 
Et que j'eusse la joie et la gloire, en ce jour, 
De vous voir tenir tout des mains de mon amour — 
which, as the object of this outburst said, was to wish 
her well in a strange fashion, but which was none the less 
truly typical of a lover's jealous devotion. 

Moliere, as Maurice Donnay says, saw life always as a 
comic poet. "He saw it as it is, that is to say, as a 
blending of things pathetic and joyous, sad and mirthful, 
where none the less sadness always dominates, and then 
with his care to imitate nature and to reproduce reality, 
between tragedy and comedy he conceived a new species 
of drama which must be the representation of life such 
as he saw and understood it." 



The Centennial 71 

In the life about him, he saw many things which aroused 
in him a lively hatred. He hated humbuggery, whether 
in the Church, in the professions or in society. He 
held it up to scorn and ridicule in his plays. Because of 
the sincerity of his outlook upon life and of his portrayal 
of human character as he perceived it, he has been be- 
loved by his countrymen for three centuries. 

"To love Moliere,"says Saint Beuve, "is to be forever 
cured of fanaticism, of intolerance and of the species of 
unkindness which makes one anathematize and curse." 
To hate and despise hypocrisy, unkindness and in- 
justice is but the negative of loving frankness, benevolence 
and fair play. One must love one's fellowman to feel 
sympathy for him when he is treated despitefuUy or 
with injustice. 

Here then in the lives, the character and the works of 
those two great men who have survived, one six, the other 
three centuries, in the hearts and minds of mankind, we 
have great examples of what we mean when we talk of the 
society of educated men. Of the two, Moli^re certainly 
would have qualified for his A. B. degree in any college 
today. For five years he attended Clermont College in 
Paris, in the rue Saint Jacques, where he must have learned 
to read Terence and Plautus in the original text, as 
well as Greek, which was a specialty in that institution. 
He completed his study of the humanities by a post- 
graduate year in philosophy with the celebrated Gassendi. 

Dante, although of more gentle birth, appears to have 
had no collegiate training. As a very young man he 
wrote verses. Not until after the death of Beatrice, 
when he was twenty -five years old, did he throw himself 
into the study of philosophy, theology and science. 

But in the truest sense, each one of these was an educat- 
ed man — full of faith in God and man, with a mind open 
to the reception of truth; loving justice and hating 
hypocrisy, with a heart full of pity for the weaknesses of 
men and a mind quickly receptive to all knowledge. I have 
chosen these two great examples of our society, because 
the anniversaries of the death of the one and of the advent 
of the other are so recent. They are those who being 
dead yet live as the companions of those who qualify 



72 HoBART College 

for their fellowship. They are typical of a great company. 
We may not hope to write a Divine Comedy or even to 
satirize the follies of our age in plays like Tartuffe or 
Le Misanthrope. But we may take from these men and 
from other great ones of the earth something of their 
faith, their inspirations, their belief in human nature and 
their unquenchable conviction of the eternal goodness of 
God. From them, too, we may learn to be intolerant of all 
hypocrisy and evil, yet to be most tolerant of differing 
opinions, and to seek the good to be found in all human 
nature. The educated man is one whose knowledge is 
not dogmatic but conscious of the good in everything. 
Scientific knowledge is pragmatic. But the essential 
basis of human character, which is truth and honor, 
remains constant and unchangeable as the planets 
whose clear and steady beams illumine the heavens for 
all the succeeding generations of mankind. 



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